The main aim of the program is to identify and then stop the various cases of juvenile delinquency within Cook County. As a measure to achieve the goal, the program will rely on the expertise of multiple stakeholders, namely the community members, parents, probation officers, social workers, and clinical officers who will promote the program at various levels. The most important input will be the ones undertaken by the probation officers, social workers, and clinical officers who handle the cases related to juvenile delinquency. The mentioned individuals n department will help in reducing the number of juvenile cases within them because they understand the causes, course, and consequences of juvenile delinquency. The objective is to identify the cause and formulate the solutions to handle the problem.
Activities
Will mainly involve discussion aimed at establishing the cause of the problem, which is juvenile delinquency, and then formulating and subsequently investing in the right measures to curb juvenile delinquency. Towards this end, it will be essential and less costly to organize seminars and workshops to ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to air their opinions and then sue the mentioned opinions as on the cause, course, and consequences of juvenile delinquency. Additionally, the workshops and the meetings will serve to help in the formulation of the right strategies and, subsequently, the policies to help in curbing the occurrence of juvenile delinquency. It is also imperative to facilitate or to foster a partnership between the relevant stakeholders that will help in handling the issues at hand.
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Outputs
As mentioned, the main objective of the project is to reduce the incidents of juvenile delinquency, which means that all efforts applied will provide the youth with alternative ways of being productive in society. The provision of training, especially the ones that help in the creation of employment and keeping the youth busy and helping them to forget about the crime, will certainly help in reducing the incidents of recidivism and the commission of the crime by the youth.
Outcome
The outcomes should be to reduce the occurrence and the probability of juvenile delinquency. It will be evident if the youths and society have the awareness and knowledge of juvenile delinquency. Acquisition of knowledge, skills, and having the aspirations and then motivation to reduce the incidents of juvenile delinquency will form the hallmark of the program.
Results of the SOAR Evaluation
For the task of program evaluation, I chose the Cook County Juvenile Court Probation Department, Illinois. The cook county juvenile court deals with every aspect of juvenile delinquency in the county, from the nature of the crime, the punishment to handling probation and incrimination
Strengths
It is a fact that the overall percentage of juvenile delinquency in the country has been decreasing over time. This same reduction in the rate of delinquency can be applied to the cook county juvenile court probation department and its policies. Instead of focusing on simply punishing delinquents and incriminating them, the department focuses on the rehabilitation of delinquents and better incorporation into society. The department focuses on not only the child but their families as well, which is why often removing delinquents from the family setting for the safety of other stakeholders is also a robust strategy of the department. It highlights the situation of each individual involved in the system through an extensive outreach program for a better understanding of the delinquent.
Opportunities
The probation officers for the department already work within the community to help children in the context of their community-based settings such as at home, school, and in the community in general. This role of the probation officer can be expanded with a greater focus on the mental health problems of the delinquent and creating a better understanding of what circumstances led to delinquency. The probation department can also focus on creating interventions that are more therapeutic to bring a child from within the child that reflects in the community.
Aspirations
The cook county juvenile court probation department is simply to provide the best possible services related to handling probation and delinquency. The main goal is achieving the welfare of not only the children involved in the system but also their families (the indirect stakeholders) taking particular care for public safety. The aspirations include focusing on each child involved in the system by forming strong partnerships with the community. It also aspires to focus on children that have been neglected and to reform behavior to ensure better accountability, community responsibility and restoration, and enhanced personal capacity for each child involved.
Results
Cook county juvenile court probation department has been dedicated to providing services intended for welfare. The department has achieved a lot ever since its creation. It focuses on the role of a probation officer as an entity for outreach, appreciates the role of the community for a complete picture, and has been successful in creating multiple programs all designed to establish strong relationships with the youth involved in the system. To carry out efficient probation, the department carries out bi-monthly supervision and intensive daily monitoring. Since the department is created with a philosophy of treatment and rehabilitation, the probation officers play a strong role in interacting with the youth and creating stronger bonds.
The Collection, Analysis, and Reporting of Data
Data Collection
The participants for the study will be probation officers, social workers, and clinical officers within Cook Juvenile court Probation. Inclusion criteria, therefore, will be as follows. First, the participants will be workers within the Cook Juvenile court Probation, as this will make it easy for the data collection process. Second, the participants will be both male and female 18 years and above. Third, only those who shall have been within the facility for more than four years will qualify for the study.
There are more than 200 potential respondents within the department. However, the study may not cover all the potential participants. Therefore, an online calculator will be critical in determining the sample size. For the study, the confidential level will be 90%, with an approximate population size of 200 and margin errors of 10%. Therefore, the total sample as per the online calculator is 51. There will be a sampling process towards the determination of the sample size. Snowball sampling will be the best for this research because the research study will be focusing on a single department (Yates &Leggett, 2016). With a snowball, the researcher will first determine specific responses under each category. Each of the respondents will then refer the researcher to those who can also provide more information on the topic. The process will continue until the researcher gets 51 participants.
For this research study, the data sources will be the people who will provide information based on their experience within the department. Therefore, the researcher will employ numerous data collection techniques to gather information. First, the interview will be critical for this study. There will be a group interview where the research will divide the sample into three groups. The first and second groups will have twenty people, while the last group will have eleven people. The group interview will be useful in gathering a large quantity of data within a short time. The survey questionnaire will also be good for the study to increase precision with no interference. Lastly, there will be a small focus group discussion with the participants to gather more data on the topic.
Data Analysis
Data analysis will mainly be carried out through SPSS using statistical correlation technique to establish the relationship of the correlation on the various identified independent variables, which in this instance, entails mainly the demographic details. The researcher relied on descriptive statistics that depict percentages and frequencies that will be supported by bar diagrams generated from bar Microsoft Excel to reinforce the quantitative aspect of the study.
Data Reporting
After data gathering, there will be analysis to refine the data and ensure that the accuracy is good for the study. The data presentation will be in the form of a pie chart and tables. Graphical comparison can also be critical for clarity and ease of reading and interpretations. The Cook Juvenile court Probation management and other parties of interest will get the results. Furthermore, it will be made available on the internet to aid research and contribute to the topic.
Program Evaluation and Plan to Disseminate Results
Program Evaluation
Juvenile delinquency is naturally one of the biggest problems facing the youth since forever. The youth is said to be the most important group of people in the society since they shape not only the present but the future as well. The teenagers and children of today are the builders and shapers of tomorrow’s society, which is the reason t is crucial to understand any problem or phenomenon related to the youth, explore potential loopholes and problems and overcome them. Even more reason for studying and exploring juvenile delinquency lies in the fact that different groups of juveniles belonging to different ethnicities have decidedly different experiences with the institution. Research shows that black juveniles are affected disproportionately by juvenile delinquency and are also penalized and punished much more severely for crimes (Barrett, 2015). Not just black youth, Hispanic youth is also a group very disproportionately affected by juvenile delinquency. Add to these already existing pressures of poverty, incrimination, and discrimination the existence as a female, and all vulnerabilities are instantly intensified and much greater (Fix, 2018).
This research will directly be beneficial for a young black woman involved in the juvenile justice system. It will look at the service needs of young black female juvenile delinquents. Examining their service needs is crucial because the service side of juvenile delinquency is often ignored, and focus only remains on the incrimination and punishment aspect of misconduct. Due to its significance and targeted population, the study will benefit not only black young women involved in the juvenile justice system. It also indirectly concerns the families of incarcerated youth, the youth of other ethnicities trapped in the system, and other service receivers of the juvenile justice system in general.
For a very long time now, considerable researches have been carried out to understand whether juvenile delinquency courts have been successful in reducing overall delinquency or not. However, research regarding the efficacy of juvenile delinquent courts as service providers is very scarce. As a public organization, the juvenile justice system must cater to the needs of the beneficiaries and provide them with services that are rehabilitative and therapeutic. Looking at the situation from one lens will ignore the needs of the people and what needs to be changed for the effective functioning of the juvenile justice system, which is why this research needs to take place now. In particular, black females make up one of the most vulnerable groups of people involved in the juvenile justice system, making the need for understanding their experiences all the more important.
For this project, my objective is to conduct research that identifies the intervention services required for supporting young black women involved in the juvenile justice system. For very long analyses of the juvenile justice system have been carried out to understand the performance of the system in general. My previous researches have also been based on similar topics; however, more focused on the roles poverty, race, and ethnicity play in juvenile delinquency. This research will aim to find out whether the service needs of young black women in the juvenile justice system are being met? It is a fact that African Americans in America are hit twice as hard by poverty as any other group, leading to greater entanglements with the law. However, add to that the vulnerabilities attached to being a woman involved with the juvenile justice system, and there is even more need for extensive research.
Dissemination of Results
The dissemination of the findings will involve various platforms and methods to ensure that stakeholders and extensive numbers of audiences get the opportunity to read and apply the results. Publishing the research in peer-reviewed journals and statewide publications will be valuable to disseminate information and the knowledge found herein. Peer-reviewed journals are ideal and will improve the credibility of the findings and weed out any errors that might have occurred during the research. Additionally, the researcher intends to use various seminars to sensitize various stakeholders such as social workers, county jail officers, parents, and the youth on the causes, course, and the consequences of juvenile delinquency. The objective is to sensitize community members on the best ways to handle the problem to ensure the progress of the youth and the community.
References
Barrett, D. E. (2015). Juvenile Delinquency Recidivism: Are Black and White Youth Vulnerable to the Same Risk Factors? Behavioural Disorders, 40 (3), 184-195.
Fix, R. (2018). Why Disproportionate Minority Contact Exists, What to Do. Juvenile Justice Information Exchange . Retrieved from https://jjie.org/2018/04/16/why-disproportionate-minority-contact-exists-what-to-do/
Nurminen, M. (2016). Machine Translation-Mediated Interviewing as a Method for Gathering Data in Qualitative Research: a Pilot Project. New Horizons in Translation Research and Education 4 .
Perry, B. L. (2013). Racial and Gender Discrimination in the Stress Process: Implications for African American Women's Health and Well-Being. Sociol Perspect, 56 (1), 25-48.
Yates, J., & Leggett, T. (2016). Qualitative research: An introduction. Radiologic Technology, 88 (2), 225-231.
